


Musically blind

by FlyingDutchy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa Week 2019, F/F, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 18:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17923976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingDutchy/pseuds/FlyingDutchy
Summary: Clarke's peaceful morning of listening to the sounds of the trainstation is interrupted when someone tortures a piano. That someone loses all higher level functions when her eyes land on Clarke.





	Musically blind

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this lying around partially written for another fandom--but adapted it for Clexa week because it fit quite well to the first theme.

If there was one cacophony of sounds she secretly enjoys, it is the familiar sounds of the morning rush hour at the train station. She has her eyes closed whilst standing in the center, out of the way of travel, mind you, and simply listened.

She heard plastic wheels bumping on the slightly uneven tiles as a suitcase—carry-on size probably—was dragged by man or woman making their way through the busy station to find the train to the airport. Where they passed, she heard uneven footsteps as busy people trying to get to their work dodged around them. The clacking of high heels against the stone tiles was higher in tone than the male equivalent. She even heard the recognizable sounds of flip flops, to her surprise as it seemed the weather had listened to the changing of the clock.

The sound of the announcement system barrels over the curses, startling her as she closely listens to the little sounds and did not expected such a loud noise. “The Sprinter to…” She tuned it out, another delay, but counts in her head: _one, two, three._

“Goddamnit, what is it this time? Leaves on the tracks?” She smiles. The train company issues one statement, one time, about too many leaves and never stops hearing the end of it. She’s temped to say that last week she’d heard that the tracks were too wet, but she doesn’t, and that person is out of earshot anyway.

The curses today are much more severe than usual. It seemed not everyone had gotten the memo that the times were a changing.

A wet snout presses against the palm of her hand and she ruffles the top of the head belonging to it. She hears the swish-swash of the tail whipping in the wind it creates. Wells, the black Labrador, is her best friend and pal and he’s used to her antics at the train station. She runs her fingers through the short firm hairs, no longer as soft as they were when he was a pup, and scratches behind his ears. “You want some attention, huh?”

While giving the dog the attention he desires, she listens to the languages around her. While the native tongue reigns, she hears many foreign languages. Today was a German day, she decides, as a group of Germans pass by speaking about a conference, they have in the nearby convention center. English was a close second though.

With one hand caressing her friend and almost her full attention on Well, her other runs over the texture of the papers she had gotten out of her bag to make sure she’d gotten the right ones. As she feels their texture, her fingers start playing the notes she hears in her head on the labrador’s head, who is used to it.

Right when she gets to the crescendo in her mind, she hears the most awful tortured sound ever produced by a piano. It pulls her out of her mind and back into reality. Who was doing that to _her_ piano? It wasn’t _her_ piano, technically, but she plays on it almost daily. Perhaps they made an error? But the sounds continue. She hears laughter too—they were enjoying mangling the poor instrument that had never hurt a fly. Do they have no shame at all? People that didn’t know how to play normally don’t touch these. Especially during rush hour where their audience is the largest.

With determined steps she follows the sound of the music—even though she doesn’t need to follow anything for she knows precisely where the instrument is—with her dog happily, by the rhythm of his feet and swishing tail, on her heels.

She can tell they are trying to play _something,_ but all the notes are wrong, the chords are dissonant without being resolved, and the piano sounds like a dying cat screaming in the dead of the night. It is pure agony for her and, she extrapolates, everyone around her. When she reaches the source of the sound, she puts her hands in her sides, with the papers she was holding flurrying at the movement, and pull her shoulders back assuredly.

“ _Wat heeft die piano jou ooit aangedaan?!”_ There’s mild amusement in her voice, but it is overshadowed by incredulity.

Playing stops abruptly. She hears a guffaw to her side, but the person playing didn’t speak up. Until she hears a feminine voice reply in confusion. “Excuse me?”

Clarke ducks her head. _Foreigners._ She almost retreats, she doesn’t like confrontations especially with people not from here, but this abuse couldn’t be forgotten that easily, so she switches to English. “What I meant was, did that piano steal your boyfriend, kill your dog or burn your house down?”

“No?” More confusion, but laughter rose up all around her, hopefully at whoever was playing. Clarke must admit she likes the sound of the voice she’s hearing. Despite the confusion in the tone, it was clear that she was tough and confident and wasn’t used to being confused at all.

“Then stop torturing _my_ piano, and by extension, everyone on this train station.”

“ _Excuse me._ ” The confusion turns into indignation. “ _Your_ piano? I don’t see your name on it.”

Of course, the mystery butcher of pianos zooms in on that one word. Her lips turn up in a smirk. “There is, in fact. Clarke Griffin should be somewhere on there.”

A shuffle of cloth against cloth and a sharp sound follows as the piano bench scratches along the stone stiles. “Nope.” The p pops. “Can’t find it.”

She falters. They had promised to put her name on it. “It-it isn’t? They said…” She parks the thought. “Even if it isn’t, there isn’t a musical bone in your body and you don’t have to subject us, and the piano, to this torture.”

By now, she can hear that the flurry of people around her has stopped and a crowd was forming around them. A blush makes its way up her cheeks from her neck. She _really_ doesn’t like confrontations. Especially in public. Why did she do this again?

She feels Well’s head push against her leg comfortingly and reaches down automatically to pet him. _Good boy._ Her confidence has grown again, and she walks around the piano and traces the edge of the concert piano with her fingers as she does so. It was a comforting gesture.

“It’s a _thing_. It doesn’t have feelings.” She can hear the scowl in the voice. “But if you know it so much better, show us.” She feels the air move as the bench is shoved back and whoever was playing got up from behind the piano.

“Gladly.” Slightly less confident—she doesn’t know exactly where the seat moved to—she reaches down and is happy that she finds the seat in one her first attempt. It would suck if she had grasped empty air in front of an audience. She pulls the chair closer and sits down, papers still in her other hand, and prepares to put them on the stand in front of her. She pauses when she hears a familiar footfall. A rhythm of a confident step followed by a slight drag caused by the crippled limb.

“Raven! Good morning.” She can tell by the hurried pace that Raven was worried. To call Raven a friend would be underselling her value to Clarke. It was Raven that had helped her through her darkest periods in life that she was much closer to a confidante, a sister, than merely a friend. If only they could’ve made a relationship work, that would have been so damn easy.

“Clarke. I didn’t hear you play yet, everything OK? Are these punks harassing you?” She hears a chorus of indignant ‘Punks?’ including her criminally bad piano player—why does she include the possessive pronoun?—exclaim.

“They were harassing _everyone_ on this station.”

A male voice, one of the laughing ones, replies. “Leave us out of it, we didn’t do a thing! It was all Lexa!” He managed to squeak out between chuckles.

So her mystery butcher of music has a name. She toyed with it in her mind, created a fictional body with a slender frame, strong shoulders matching her confident and tough voice, but soft lips and—why is she doing this again when she’d only heard her voice and gotten into an argument about proper piano protocol. But she wants to run her hands over Lexa to find out if her conjured image matches reality.

“Raven could you…” She holds out the papers in front of her until Raven grabs them from her hands and puts them on the sheet music stand in front of her.

The papers rustle as someone picks them from the stand, Lexa, based on the fact that she was the only one close enough. “It’s blank! You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

“It’s not blank!” Clarke reaches out to grab her music back—and misses, striking Lexa in her ribs.

“Oof, what was that for.”

“Give it back.”

Now she hears fingers running over the paper, and they stop after a short movement. “Shit, you’re blind.”

Boisterous laughter surrounds her now and Clarke is not in on the joke. Lexa’s friends seem to be laughing at Lexa though, based on the fact that Raven isn’t admonishing them. “Lexa, _you’re_ blind. That you didn’t see beyond the pretty blonde, you useless lesbian.” A smile pulls on her lips as they joke.

“S _hit_. And I totally said your name wasn’t on there and you couldn’t check it yourself because you’re blind— _fuck._ I’m a bad person.” Now a chuckle escapes her own lips too. “Your name is totally on there by the way.”

Clarke wants to reach out and comfort Lexa to indicate that she’s not angry about all that. A soft hand with calloused finger tips—the fingers of a guitar player, she muses—catches it. “Safer this way.” Clarke remembers the gut punch she’d delivered to Lexa just moments ago. “Shit, that’s horrible of me to say.”

A full smile breaks on Clarke’s lips though. “Your comment about my name would have been funnier if you had known I was blind.”

Clarke doesn’t try to hide her blindness, but she doesn’t put any signs up either. Wells does wear a vest indicating that he’s a service dog though she uses a normal leash, a red and white collapsible stick is attached to her belt which she uses in unfamiliar terrain, but that is about it. She is proud that she managed to fool Lexa though, that she made eye contact convincing enough to—

“I’m sorry, I just thought you were autistic with the way you didn’t make eye contact and how you responded to my music or something, but I didn’t want to be rude.” Her pride vanishes instantly.

“Holy fuck, Lexa!” The man who had spoken up earlier about leaving him out of it exclaimed in horror at his friend.

Clarke stops for a moment, taking in the dry tone in which the offensive remark was made, and bursts out in laughter. She flails with her free hand, and knocks her sheet music from the piano, looking for something to hold on to lest she drops from her bench. Lexa tightens her grip on her other hand almost instinctively and Clarke remains firmly seated while her body rocks with laughter so hard that she can’t get enough air. When she’s done gasping for air, she’s absolutely sure that everyone, besides Raven—maybe including Raven—must think she’s crazy.

“I don’t know if I should be offended on behalf of myself or on behalf of autistic people.” She says.

Lexa bounces back: “Try both.”

“How about neither?”

“Agree to disagree?”

“No.”

“Deal.” Lexa shakes the hand she had captured against Clarke consent and she pulls it back as if burned. But the smile hasn’t left her face. “So… Are you going to play or what?”

“Oh. Yes. Of course, let me just.” She reaches tentatively for the keys, and counts them from each side towards the center and adjusts her seat so that she is in the middle of the 88 keys. Using the black keys as a guide, she finds where her hands should be.

“Need your sheets?” Paper rustles, startling her from her concentration. She glowers towards, she hopes, Lexa.

“And how would I read them while playing? With my nose?” She twirls both of her hands to make a point that she needs both of them while playing.

She hears Lexa pull in a breath to reply and cuts her off by pressing her left hand down on the keys, hard. The sudden chord is continued by a walk up and back down again on the lower half of the piano, then her right hands joins in with the fast melody and she is swept away by the music.

Not being able to see means the world seizes to exist once the music drowns out all other sounds around her. She tunes into the piece of Chopin she’s playing and becomes one with it. Her fantasy replaces vision with conjurations of her mind. Clarke wasn’t always blind, she lived with vision for twenty-four years until she lost it three years ago, and her mind uses memories to build a story around the music. Each time, the story is different, even if the music is the same.

Until the song fades and she returns to reality.

It is deadly silent around her. Even the footsteps have stopped for just a moment. Until applause breaks out, unbeknownst to her she has gathered a crowd. She imagines she’s back on stage, with an orchestra at her back, but shakes that image from her mind. No use in dwelling on what can’t happen.

She turns to her left and smiles as broadly as she can, straining her cheeks. “ _See_?”

She hears a sniffle. “Wow.” Another longer sniffle. “I’ve never—that was…”

“If I’d known that it was this easy to leave a girl speechless.” Her mouth runs before her brain, and she coughs to hide a blush that’s rising to her cheeks. “I mean… I don’t know what I mean. You know?”

The commuters have started going on their way, some pass by and give her thanks or a compliment. Until someone pulls on her skirt and turns, reaching out with her hands carefully—she knows perfectly well how not to hurt people—and finds a young boy, or a girl with short hair, standing in front of her. He chuckles, confirming her initial thoughts, at how she ruffles his hair.

“ _Mag ik een handtekening_?” She pauses. It’s been a few years since anyone had asked for an autograph.

“ _Natuurlijk. Heb jij een pen?_ ” She has no uses for pens, pencils or other writing utensils for non-blind people, but suddenly a pencil is pushed into her hands, her fingers brushing with Lexa's calloused ones. She recognizes the feeling of a permanent marker. “Where?” She waves the marker around mid-air.

A booklet, agenda maybe, is pushed into her other hand and she balances it on her knee. The pen hangs just above the page and she is unsure for just a moment. Then she scribbles something down in a—hopefully—impressive flourish.

“What does it say?” She asks the boy in Dutch.

“ _Ik weet het niet.”_ The boy replies with an unsure tone after a moment of trying to decipher what’s on the page.

“Well, I don’t know either.” She says dryly and the boy laughs at her, after which he leaves them.

“You’re famous?”

“Used to play in an orchestra before…” she points towards her eyes. “Anyhow, I can’t see the conductor anymore, which, shocker, is quite essential.” She holds out Lexa’s marker who takes it from her grasp.

“We, uh, I might not be as musically challenged as you first said.”

“Oh?”

“Anya, Lincoln, Octavia and I form a little band.”

She shakes her head. “Let me guess, you play the triangle?” she receives a poke in her ribs. “That’s unfair, I can’t see it coming.”

“Lead singer and guitarist, actually. We’re called Trigedakru.”

Lexa pauses expectantly, Clarke ducks her head and blushes. “My pop-music knowledge ends at the 80s, sorry. Where are you from?”

“Jersey.” Lexa states. “in the States.” The latter was added self-consciously, as if she has reminded herself that she’s not in the States anymore.

“Then you must know this.” The piano responds to her touch and clear chords echo through the slowly emptying train station. She hears a whoop coming from behind her and smiles.

“The Boss!” Lincoln exclaims. “This girl can jam.”

Lexa is silent for a moment. “Sorry, yes of course I know this. I was, ehm, nodding.”

“Well then, what are you waiting for?”

It only takes a second for Lexa to gather her wits and then her voice joins Clarke’s instrumentals. “ _The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves…”_

It turns out that Lexa had a magnificent voice. Clarke’s hands moved on their own accord as she listened to the singer cover Springsteen better than she’d heard before. The other band mates join the chorus and Clarke goes all out in the piano solo, which end up getting a classical Mozart-like twist.

One song let to another. Lincoln joins Clarke, kicking Lexa off of her seat, on the keys for a few songs. Until a mini concert erupts for the few travelers that passed by and the employees at work.

They play songs from famous New Jersey artists. The small crowd sings along famous Paul Simon and Bon Jovi songs. When Lincoln spays the first chords to 'I wanna dance with somebody’ she hears the unmistakable shuffle of people _dancing_ behind her. Her playing is interrupted as someone wraps a hand around hers, Lincoln takes her part over like nothing is wrong, and she’s is pulled from her seat. She stumbles but is securely caught in strong arms.

“I wanna feel the heat with somebody.” She shivers as Lexa whisper sings the line in her ear. Pressed up against the other woman, she notices that Lexa is slim and just barely a bit less tall than herself.

Clarke hesitates. “I… can’t dance.”

With a yelp, she’s spun around her axis and then pulled back into those arms. “Doesn’t look like it.” And she dances for the first time in three years.

Despite how much fun dancing is, she feels much safer on the bench on the piano and returns to playing after that one song. They play a rock ballad; a catchy pop tune she doesn’t know but improvises along Lexa’s vocals.

A few songs down the line, Clarke takes a pregnant pause as people catch their breath until Lexa starts the next song.

“ _If I should stay_ ,” a shiver goes down her spine, “ _I would only be in your way_.” Despite it not making a difference to her, she closes her eyes to enjoy the music.  She almost forgets to start playing as her full attention is on that voice.

As the final sounds ebb away from strings, her breathing is labored, it’s been ages since she’d played to near exhaustion. She throws her arms around Lexa who is seated next to her again.

“I’ve never had so much fun.” The singer says and she nods in agreement. “Wait, when did the others leave?”

She presses a button on her watch which softly voices to her want time it was. Lexa hers it too.

“Shit.” In a flurry, the bench is moved and she braces herself against the piano. Lexa stands up from the bench. “I’ve got to go. I’m way late for the sound check.”

Clarke let’s out a yelp as she feels lips press against her cheeks, close to the corner of her mouth, and before her brain responds Lexa is gone.

The smile doesn’t leave her face for the rest of the day.

 

 

“Describe Lexa for me.” Clarke asks her friend who had come to visit her that evening for movie night, interrupting her descriptions of scenes. Raven watched movies first by herself and later with her to provide a play by play description.

Tonight, she can’t keep her attention to the sounds of the movie and Raven’s descriptions. She’s still thinking back at how secure she felt when she was spun around by those strong hands, thinking back at how well Lexa’s voice conveyed the emotion behind the songs she had sung.

Raven stops the movie. “I figured your mind was in the gutter when you didn’t respond to me saying that Rey pulled out her wizard wand.”

“I’m not big on Star Trek” – “Star _Wars!” –_ “Whatever!”

“Lexa is crazy hot.” Raven ignored her exclamation. “She’s slender, and very clearly works out, like, a _lot.”_

Clarke remembers the strong arms that kept her steady and nods. “I know.”

“You minx,” Raven exclaims with faux incredulity, “what did you get into with her after I had left.”

“We jammed.” She recalls the vernacular that Lincoln had used. “And she danced with me. Though she did most of the work. Give me more details.”

Raven describes Lexa in more detail. “She’s got deep green eyes, and dark brown hair.”

“Like a cello? Or darker.” Clarke remembers what colors are, having been able to see them for 22 years, but she needs to tie them to objects.

“Definitely darker.” Lexa has a slightly pale oval face framed by long wavy hair which she had swung over one shoulder. She forms an image in her mind. She adds the black leather pants she had felt on Lexa this morning and gives her a grey sweater.

“No tats or piercings.” Raven adds. “visible at least, but who knows what she might be hiding.”

Immediately the leather pants and sweater vanish from her imaginary Lexa and she’s clad a black lacy bra and near see-through panties. A blush creeps up to her neck and cheeks as she shakes her head.

Raven shakes with barely concealed laughter. “You were building your mental image, weren’t you? I know where your mind went. Not too big breasts, smaller than yours and mine, but firm. Definitely has a beautiful firm but we’ll rounded ass.” Clarke’s blush was surely permanent now, she thinks as she added those details shamelessly to her conjuration.

“Wait. You’ve checked her out too!” She accused and wagged her finger in Raven's general direction.

“Too? Did your hands wander a bit?” She remains dutifully quiet. They had, not-so-innocently, seemingly hidden behind her blind clumsiness. She couldn’t subtly look like everyone else. “Did you at least get her number?”

At this she shakes her head sadly. “She had to leave quite fast.”

“That sucks.”

“But I’ve had the best time of my life.” She didn’t want the fact that she has no way to contact Lexa overshadow he memory.

 

 

She wakes up in then same clothes as yesterday with exhaustion in her bones and a pounding headache. It’s been ages since she had had a hangover. She pushes herself of the large king size bed. Her leather pants creak in the quiet room.

She wanders a bit in the unfamiliar surroundings, stubs her toe against a dresser, and finally finds the bath room. She shies back, like a vampire from sunlight, from the light she flicks on. A dead tired face stares back at her. Her carefully done hairdo was messed up and sticking in all directions. Huge shadows hang underneath her eyes. Her eyes are the opposite of tired though. There’s an energy she hasn’t been able to see the past half year.

She feels weirdly energized.

Yesterday evening rushes back to her while she splashes water on her face in an attempt to wake her skin up. She had put on the best show of this tour. The 97th show in the past half year, and it was their best. Playing until the venue almost physically had to remove them. Continuing in a local bar, drinking too much but without the despair that used to accompany it, and stumbling back to their hotel in Amsterdam.

She looks at her watch. It was 10 in the morning and she’d gotten only four hours of sleep. Her body is tired, but she can’t go back to bed. She knows the reason for her state of mind and must find her.

She sniffs her nose.

A shower first though. The smell of last night’s sweat is near unbearable.

Feeling refreshed after her shower, she throws on a hoody and simple skinny jeans and a pair of sunglasses despite the overcast weather. Her hangover is pounding her brain and she eases the strain on her eyes.

She wanders through the cobblestone streets of Amsterdam, over the picturesque canals, towards the city center. If she’d had more time, she would love to visit the museums sometime. But the queue that has already formed on front of the Anne Frank House is prohibitively long. And she has more pressing matters.

Today is their last day in the Netherlands has one more sold out show in Amsterdam tonight, before flying tomorrow at noon to London for their final shows of this tour. So, it is now or never. Well, she can always fly back after the short home your they had planned in Jersey, but she’d have to delay recording her new albums which she’d promised her fans would arrive before the festival season in summer. They’re booked for a few charity shows around Christmas too, so no luck there either.

The shrill sound of a bicycle bell shakes her out of her reverie. She has wandered onto the cycling pathways and dozens of locals dodge around her with a nasty glare. Yep, she was one of _those_ tourists now. A mother with two children seats, one with a boy the other with a young girl, on her bike swerves around her and she yells some expletive she doesn’t understand. Finally, she sees a gap between the cyclists and makes a run for it.

After that small adventure on the deadly streets of Amsterdam, she makes it to the station unharmed. She thinks Clarke, having practically her own piano, must live near the train station she was yesterday, which was just 30 minutes by train from here. Looking at the signs, she finds the next one is leaving in just 10 minutes. A yellow and blue train, with two levels, pulls up and people flock out by the hundreds.

She drums on the train windows and her knees don’t stop bouncing all the way to her destination. Landscapes flash by. First the city of Amsterdam, then flat countryside but there’s never an empty field like in back home in the states. It feels like one continuous village-city. The moment she steps off the train onto the platforms below the station she stops and thinks.

She has no guarantee that Clarke would be here.

She perks her ears to listen for the sound of the piano as she climbs the escalator. The large truss structure covering the roof is shaped without mind for acoustics and sounds carry quite far, as she’d learned yesterday when she had incurred the blonde’s wrath.

She gets her hopes up when she hears the clear sound of the grand piano. It only takes her a few seconds to know that this isn’t Clarke.

When she reaches the piano, she can’t see it over the small crowd. There are a few camera teams, a few people recording themselves with mobile phones and she wonders what is going on here. Maybe someone famous was playing?

But no, whoever had played has stopped. Then she recognizes something from the corner of her eye. One of the vloggers is wearing a shirt with her band’s logo, a cog-wheel with the infinity sign over it, and holding up their latest album.

Oh no. She pulls her hoody over her head and hides in anonymity while quickly checking her phone.

2 messages. Over 150,000 mentions on twitter. She opens twitter first.

It’s almost one and the same. A recording of her singing to Clarke has gone viral. The band had already left by that point and it was just her practically serenading the young blonde pianist with ‘I will always love you’ from Whitney Houston.

The sound was surprisingly good, and she blushes almost at her own expression of pure adoration when she looks at the blonde, who’s sporting a healthy blush herself too. Even the final kiss goodbye as she rushed off. It looks like an everyday occurrence, and from the angle it seems like full on the lips. Now she gets to watch the pianist’s reaction to it, and she’s secretly pleased that the blonde sits there stunned while bringing her hand and fingers to the place she had kissed her.

Then she reads the comments.

Lexa is gay, but not out on the public stage. She always thought it would pull the conversation away from the music and more towards her being an icon. Now, she’s certainly glad she never brought it up.

Reading the comments, she feels pulled and pushed in different directions. Some groups hate and shun her, and immediately she feels for all the people that openly have to endure this day in and day out, but other groups claim her as one of their own, as if she’s some beacon for a cause. A political weapon. She gets it, but she hadn’t asked for this.

But that is not the worst of it.

She also reads about Clarke. There’s a lot of positivity, but as always with these things, the negative hurts much more. Anger flares up as people call the blind blonde a charity whore, because she’s clearly blind with the dog and the cane—how she could have missed those is beyond her. Others hate her for turning Lexa gay and ‘ruining their chances’. Some have tried searching for her online, but luckily Clarke has no online presence, something Lexa herself despaired about just this morning when she was searching for her. Some women claim that Clarke’s not beautiful enough for her, not because they’re jealous, but simply to tear someone else down.

People online sucked.

Of course, Clarke wouldn’t come here today with so much attention. It still is puzzling to her why this part of her life draws real news crews to an empty piano, but you take the good and the bad with being a celebrity. It’s mostly good though, she can’t complain.

Putting her hands in her pockets she how looks like an angsty teenager going through a phase, she slinks away dejectedly. She walks past the food court, tempted to buy ice-cream to eat away the sad feeling of missed opportunity. She then recognizes the person behind the counter: the woman was dancing along yesterday morning.

“Morning,” she starts and glances at the stuffing she can choose in this make-your-own ice-cream shop. It looks complicated and she doesn’t really want ice-cream anyway. “Can I ask you something?”

“If it’s about the pianist, then no.” Lexa is taken aback by the firm tone. She looks at the slightly darker skinned woman, with a head scarf covering her hair, and notices the defensive glare given to her.

“Yes, actually-“

“Then the answer is yes I know her, no I won’t tell you anything else.” She knows Dutch people were direct, but this was downright rude. Then she sees it.

The woman is protective.

Lexa glances around the empty ice cream store. It was autumn so very few people are interested in a cold desert on an early morning. She pulls down her hoody and sunglasses, flinching at her barely recovered visage in the reflection of the counter, and looks up. There is recognition in the clerk’s eyes.

“It’s you. I’m sorry, you look just like your fans.” She looks down, a dark goody, black jeans with tears in them, some of her fans _were_ angsty teenagers. Her tone is slightly more open now, but still guarded.  “What do you want to know?”

Anything. “How can I contact her?”

“Clarke’s a private person. Normally she’s here every day and that is how you contact her.” There is an accusation in her voice, blaming her for the blonde’s absence today. “You could go to the center and ask around in the homeless shelters.”

“She’s homeless?”

“No, of course not.” It was a stupid question, Clarke looked much too put together to be homeless. The cashier nods towards the piano outside. “She teaches for free three days a week. Lots of homeless people take lessons and they know the streets and people better than anyone else. They might help you.”

Hearing what Clarke most of the days warms her heart. “She’s, wow. Thanks for your help.”  

She finally checks her phone again when she walks out of the store and notices a few missed calls from her band mates. She calls Anya first. “Leeexxaaa, I’m so glad you’re not dead!” In a whisper to someone off the line she hears, “Call off the cops, she’s found. And when she gets back, we’re going to kill you so the cops would be a nuisance.”

“Why did you call the cops?”

“Neither of us could remember what happened last night but you were gone this morning.” She _had_ left without a word. “Where _are_ you?”

“At yesterday’s train station.”

“Of course, where else—why in the name of god are you at yesterday’s train station?” She pulls the phone back from her ear to protect her fragile senses.

“—She’s where?” She hears Lincoln speak, followed by Octavia’s laughter.

“Oh, Lexa, you useless, useless, lesbian.” A chorus of ohs and ahs follows from those listening in. She relays her morning back to her worried friends.

“I have to find her.”

 

 

“… _That was a_ very _powerful performance of your newest single.”_  Clarke’s ears are glued to the speakers. It’s not the first time she listens to this recording.

“ _Thank you._ ” There’s a smile hidden in that voice and she wonders why she could tell that. “ _We’ve worked really hard on this album to finish it before summer.”_

She feels the tremors of the bus ass it coasts along the uneven streets. Her fingers play with the hem of her dress as she drowns herself in another performance of Lexa’s band.

“ _Utrecht Centraal_ ,” the automatic announcement system proclaims she’d reached her destination. A wet nose is pressed against her leg for good measure, too.

She steps out of out the bus and flicks out her cane. It’s rush hour right now and without it people would bump into her as they hurried without watching. They step on the escalator. Some people always tell her to be careful with the dog on these moving stairs, but Wells is better at it then her. The end always comes as a surprise.

She half stumbles onto the platform and finds a central spot to listen to the people rushing along. Another German day, she concludes. Just like back then.

Clarke shakes her head. It’s been half a year, why is she still thinking about that missed chance. And was it even a missed chance? There’d been half a dozen interviews with Lexa, all of which tried to pry information regarding the woman’s sexuality and sex live—and Clarke by extension—but each was directed towards the new album. She didn’t blame Lexa, but it left Clarke even more perplexed at herself. Was Lexa even gay-or bi like herself?

She smiles when she hears a tentative note played on the piano. Someone unsure of themselves, possibly playing for the first time in public. She recognizes the song by the first notes, and then notices that the pause is too long and the playing too staccato, instead of fluid. Her trained ears pick up all mistakes. Not that it bothers her, but she can’t help herself.

Her feet follow the music. When she closes the gap, the playing suddenly falters and stops. _“Speel gerust verder.”_

“Not going to have me arrested for murder?” Clarke freezes. A chair scrapes along concrete and footsteps close in until they stop right in front of her. She takes a sharp breath and waits. She hears _her_ do the same. “This is a bad—"

“Assault.” She squeaks out. “It’s not as bad as last time.”

A ruffle of clothes, followed by a huff. “A micro-aggression at worst.”

“Slander or libel, that’s the lowest I could go.” A smile forms on her mouth, thinking back at their previous argument.

“Make it an inappropriate comment and we’ll call it a deal.”

“Never.”

“Okay.” Now she hears once again the smile that laces those words. They both pause. Clarke hadn’t prepared for this possibility and doesn’t quite know how to act. They stare at each other—at least, she hopes she catches those green eyes.

“A little to the right—no my right, your left.” Lexa interrupts her, possibly noticing her searching eyes. “You know what, just close them.”

She closes them. “Why do I—”

A mouth captures hers. Just ever so briefly. Before it pulls back. “I’m sorry, I had a whole speech—”

She treads her fingers through long strands of silky hair, something she’d imagined feeling many, many times, and pulls harder than she’d meant to. Lexa corrects their collision course and once again their lips meet but for longer this time. She hears the clicking of phone cameras and decides not to care one bit.

When they both gasp for the same breath, their foreheads leaning against each other. “I’ve been wanting to that for six months now.”

“Me too.” Lexa responds. “Are you free this weekend? I have a small little gig in the countryside, it’s called PinkPop or something?”

“Do I get backstage access?” She haggles.

“And dressing room.”

“Make it _hotel room_ and I’ll consider it.” She hears a curse and the hands on her waist tighten ever so slightly. She lets her hands rake down those muscular arms.

“Deal.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, to be honest, I like the first half the best and didn't quite know how to finish it. And I didn't want to leave it without some closure! Oh, and I never have ever found out about clexaweek (or any other fandom-week) on time. So, that's a first for me too.
> 
>  
> 
> Dutch translations: 
> 
>  
> 
> “Wat heeft die piano jou ooit aangedaan?!” -- "What did that piano ever do to you?" 
> 
> "Mag ik een handtekening? -- "Can I have an autograph?"
> 
> "Natuurlijk. Heb jij een pen?” -- "Of course, do you have a pen?" 
> 
> “Ik weet het niet.” -- "I don't know." 
> 
> "Speel gerust verder.” -- "Continue playing."


End file.
